$20 Aakash 2 Android tablet goes official, unveiled by Indian president
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Indian President Pranab Mukherjee officially launched the affordable device on Sunday. "Technology enabled learning is a very important aspect of education. This must be adapted to our specific needs and introduced expeditiously in all educational institutions across the country," he said.
What you get for that is a simple 7-inch Android tablet, and that’s great. It features a 1GHz Cortex-A8 processor, 512MB of RAM, 4 gigs of internal storage. The Aakash 2 runs on Android 4.0.3, and does feature a built-in WiFi connectivity and a VGA camera up front for video chats. Battery life is not stellar at 3 hours, but we'd take this at the price.
The trick with the price is that it applies to students only, while others will have to pay $80 for the device. It’s all about getting tablets in the hands of as many students as possible. The initial plan is for the first batch of 100,000 tablets to go out to students.
source: Venture Beat via Engadget
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20 Comments
1. MeoCao (unregistered) posted on 12 Nov 2012, 04:00 8 1
Looks nice, hopefully the performance is not as sluggish as earlier version
5. yowanvista posted on 12 Nov 2012, 05:09 1 6
meh.. Another rebranded Chinese tablet using the crappy Allwinner A10/13 SoC. That thing will never support Jelly Bean nor will it provide a decent level of performance. I myself have a slightly better tablet (Novo 7 Elf) with the same hardware and I wouldn't recommend anything which uses that poor SoC.
8. adelta90 posted on 12 Nov 2012, 06:33 5 0
people who need $20 or $80 tablets dont care about jelly bean
they are happy enough just to own a tablet
11. VJo003 posted on 12 Nov 2012, 07:44 3 0
It's Indian n not Chinese.
I guess the core purpose of the tab to assist learning... Guess updates is not important
14. yowanvista posted on 12 Nov 2012, 08:49 1 2
The whole board including the chipset is Chinese made (the SoC was designed by some Chinese company). In whole they just rebranded one of those cheap generic tablet boards.
15. VJo003 posted on 12 Nov 2012, 09:13 0 0
Am referring to the though of conceiving something like this.... not the the make of the components that brought it to life.
16. adelta90 posted on 12 Nov 2012, 10:50 1 0
did you even read the article? this tablet has been subsidized by the government so that those students who cant afford expensive tech can still get a tablet
Its not a matter of rebranding. I think its a great initiative
13. FireDragon posted on 12 Nov 2012, 08:39 2 0
Read again and understand, it is for the Students, specially those students who cannot afford entire yearly course and notebooks. This thing can provide them way too much, including the element of excitment of using the latest Tech form.
20. Doakie posted on 13 Nov 2012, 09:37 0 0
You can buy this right now on eBay for $69.95 for a 8GB model with free shipping from within the USA. Of course its not going to be something as fast as we're used here in America, but we need to remember that this is a $70 tablet. I've checked out YouTube videos on the Allwinner A13 soc running on these 7" tablets and its slow but it looks usable. All I can say is keep your mind open. Don't expect these to perform like a Nexus 7.
6. Cyan3boN posted on 12 Nov 2012, 05:41 2 2
I like that. but how bout subsidizing the nexus 7 so that I can buy it at the sweet Rs 10000 and not 20000(400$)
17. OptimusOne posted on 12 Nov 2012, 11:31 0 0
subsidizing always comes with catches
with carriers, its 2 year contracts(think of them as 2 year prison sentences), enormously high prices for 2 years
so subsidizing isn't always good.
9. Peter27 posted on 12 Nov 2012, 06:35 5 0
careful there! rectangle with rounded corners! you might end up paying billion. to get that you will have to sell really lot of tablets at the $ 20 price.
19. rusticguy posted on 12 Nov 2012, 16:12 1 0
Wish Apple good luck if they sue Indian Govt. They will need to pay billions to ministers first to get things done. India is a tough ground as per TIM Cook (because here even public opposition can annul a Patent) ... so customer is the "bully" here by and large :)
18. Vishesh posted on 12 Nov 2012, 13:28 0 0
This tablet is was and will be designed for educational purposes only.
The predecessor had some letdowns which this version has been equipped with.
I am a student from India.Getting one very soon!!!!!
